1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to gaming devices and more particularly to player operated gaming devices, such as slot machines.
2. Prior Art
The exemplary embodiment of the present invention disclosed herein is intended for use in conjunction with slot machines and accordingly prior art described herein shall be described with respect to such machines, it being understood however, that the invention is not so limited.
Various types of slot machines have been well known for many years. Early slot machines were mechanical devices having some form of mechanically rotatable and randomly stoppable reels having certain indicia thereon, with an appropriate mechanical system for paying our predetermined numbers of coins based upon the appearance of various combinations of the indicia upon the random stopping of the reels. Later devices of this general type incorporated various forms of electro-mechanical devices for sensing reel position, controlling pay out upon the occurance of a winning condition and for controlling certain other aspects of machine operation. Still later designs included all electronic machines wherein the mechanically rotating reels were replaced with a cathode ray tube display displaying rotating reel images randomly stopped in accordance with the control electronics thereof. Of course, such devices are only exemplary of the various player operated gaming machines, characterized generally for the present purposes as machines wherein a player may deposit one or more coins or other items of monetary value for the privilege of playing the machine, after which play the machine may dispense money or other items of monetary value, or alternatively indicate a winning condition for manual payout. In either situation such a machine will ordinarily contain substantial amounts of money which is generally accessible to certain persons such as machine maintenance personnel prior to any counting or other accounting therefor. As a result, substantial though unknown pilferage is believed to occur with such machines. In addition, of course, mechanical malfunctioning of such machines or tampering of the machine itself may grossly effect the odds of winning whereby a player may empty a machine of coins before the problem is detected.
Various systems have been proposed to improve the accountability of such gaming devices. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,072,930 discloses a monitoring system for use with amusement game devices. That system is adapted for use with a computer and includes an interface unit connected to the computer and to a plurality of coupler units which are individually mounted on and interconnected with the gaming devices. Each of the coupler devices is adapted to receive a portable device for identifying individually each of the attending personnel. The identifying device or transponder locks into the coupler unit and provides informational responses to interrogation by the interface unit which sequentially polls and addresses each of the transponders. In the event a game device provides a winning condition, an operator inserts a transponder into the coupler unit of the game device that indicated the condition, which causes selective communication among the computer, coupler unit and transponder, including identification of the game device, transponder, size of the winning condition and other information. The size of the winning condition is thereafter displayed on a digital read-out, such as in the transponder, enabling the attending personnel to verify the condition. Once the amusement game device is then returned to playing condition, the transponder is unlocked and can be removed from the coupler unit and is available for insertion into other coupler units in response to winning conditions occurring therein. Such a system may be useful in monitoring and verifying the payouts of large jackpots to prevent theft or double payouts of floor personnel, though has limited use in other functions such as surveillance, in that communication with any particular gaming device only occurs on the establishment of the winning condition.
Another monitoring system for gaming devices such as slot machines is also known. That system constantly monitors and gathers complete functional and accounting data from each slot machine for recording at a central computer. In addition, the central computer includes means for controlling the slot machines in that any indication of tampering or malfunction will cause the system to shut down that machine. Because of the quantity of data being gathered by the central computer an extremely large storage capacity is required, all of which results in the gathering of more date than essential or convenient for the monitoring of the slot machines. Further, because the system can control the on-off function of the slot machines, various malfunctions and/or power losses can cause the system to turn off all slot machines requiring the manual resetting of each machine to the chagrin of the players because of the number of machines involved and limited personnel for accomplishing the task.